Blood Red Shoes: Live At the Bowery Electric

One of the most appealing aspects of any CMJ Music Marathon are those surprises that lie in wait, often from international acts using the festival as their testing grounds/jumping off point for eventual US supremacy. Perhaps the best example of this kind of discovery this past year came from Blood Red Shoes; a fiery, British two-piece who peddled a heap of pent up, cathartic energy during a showcase at the Bowery Electric. To the giddy delight of critics and fans alike, the band, consisting of guitarist Laura-Mary Carter and drummer Steven Ansell, have spent the last year churning a rather glorious noise in England and across much of mainland Europe with constant touring behind their appropriately titled debut Fire Like This. Their performances this past Fall however represent their first stab at the States. That fire which BRS refer to on the cover of their album is obviously their own creative intensity, and as this concert video can attest, clearly singed and ignited the curiosity of almost everyone in attendance. From the moment a blatant, attention calling drone of cymbal and guitar propelled their set into fast forward, the confines of the Bowery Electric was churning with an inquisitive buzz. Who was this band? Why had nobody ever heard of them? The result was a stunned and overwhelmed kind of gathering...a nice place to put any audience hearing a band for the first time.